Newspaper Article - MSCoE welcomes first ever historian

Thursday, 01 April 2010
By Lindsey Dunstedter
Special to GUIDON

The Maneuver Support Center of Excellence and Fort Leonard Wood achieved another first, as Dr. John Glover became the first historian for MSCoE and the installation.

While each of the resident branches at Fort Leonard Wood — United States Army CBRN, Engineer, and Military Police schools — have historians responsible for the histories of their regiments, Glover is the first historian dedicated solely to the history of the fort and the MSCoE.

Glover began his military career in 1968 and retired as an Army officer in 1991. Before accepting the job as the Fort Leonard Wood historian, he served as command historian for Third Air Force at Ramstein Air Base, Germany. Glover has deployed twice to provide historical support for Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom; he interviewed on the phone, from the desert, for the historian position at the fort.

Although Glover expected to stay in his position in Germany for three to five years, he eagerly accepted the job at Fort Leonard Wood. He had been looking for an opportunity to return to the Army, and has a special interest in the concept of maneuver support.

“I wanted to be back with the Army and working with Soldiers; Fort Leonard Wood is an installation where great things are happening. The concept of maneuver support is intriguing, in terms of the current conflict. Plus, the idea of MSCoE, an organization that is task organized to perform duties and missions, really demonstrates the flexibility and adaptability required in preparing forces to defeat the current threat,” Glover said. “My personal motivation for accepting the position is that I am getting paid to do things I enjoy with the service I love.”

As an Army historian, Glover has a long-standing interest in unconventional warfare and understanding how the Army responds to unconventional and low-intensity threats.

“The U.S. Army is adaptable, flexible and incredibly lethal. Our Army is unique in that we do not seek conflict, but when we are faced with an enemy we meet it head-on when necessary and with an appropriate application of force,” Glover said. “The U.S. is one of the most compassionate nations in history; that heritage is a cornerstone of a military force that is compassionate yet extremely lethal when other efforts fail.”

Glover’s military training and advanced education is extensive. He graduated from the Air War College and the Air Command and Staff College; he holds a Ph.D. in Military History and History Education from the University of Arizona.

“We are absolutely thrilled to have a full-time, dedicated historian to capture the history of Fort Leonard Wood, one of the Department of Defense’s and Missouri’s finest treasures. Dr. Glover, along with our school historians, provides a great military history capability for our post,” said Dr. Rebecca Johnson, the post’s Senior Executive Service and Deputy to the Commanding General.

“Each of our branches has a historian to cover their regiments’ history, which is a critical function,” Johnson said. With all of the growth and the evolution of Fort Leonard Wood to a Center of Excellence, we realized that we needed a separate historian to focus solely on the post and the center itself.”

As the Fort Leonard Wood historian, Glover will be part of the Command Group’s special staff. He will focus on documenting the post’s history through research and interviews and will be publishing aspects of that history in a variety of media. Additionally, Glover will serve as the military history coordinator on behalf of the commanding general and as an adjunct faculty member in military history instruction.

(Editor’s note: Dunstedter is an intern with the Manuever Support Center of Excellence and a graduate student at Missouri University of Science and Technology.)